20 February 2013

As a trout angler i have a preference for rivers over lochs, although hopefully this season will see some variety with a few visits to lochs. With the season not far now I've forced myself to have a few sessions on the vice , not an awful lot to tie still plenty from last season of certain patterns , an hour here and there ,and ive started to build up a stock, no flights of fancy just the workhorses that will actually see the light of day.

First up the turkey biot klink. These are all brown ones tied on my favourite hook the humble Kamasan B100 these are 12's but i will tie a few 14's as well .

Next up are size 10 haresear klinks , i'll go through a lot of these particularly mid summer onwards.

Next again very similar to the above but gives a different footprint , is the dirty Polly . Excels in turbulent water and for this you could tie the hackle more to suit . A fly that i would reach for in poor clarity or on waters where the fish are often reluctant to rise to a surface fly has loads of triggers big surface footprint with hackle and wing and also penetrates the surface . The ones pictured are 10's but 12's and 14's are also useful .

A black one in a 12 looks useful for the black terrestrial stuff, particularly hawthorn flies. And I've tied these up with a specific burn in mind.

Hawthorn fly

This one proved its worth last season when the trout were being selective when on Medium olives , seemed to be the fly of the moment on many rivers during that hatch .

Next again a generic fly the wire nymph. This has been my bread and butter for many years , i used to tie it with a hare thorax but have since used peacock glister , both are useful but my preference is for the glister thorax, almost all i use nowadays apart from occasional wettings of the prince nymph and peeping caddis.

That shoud be the first months covered , ive aready plenty cdc and snowshoe patterns , and stuff for smutting fish and theres still plenty time for those high summer patterns such as Stimulators, G&H sedges maybe the odd balloon caddis, and the CDC and elk. Maybe a woolly bugger or two would be useful . And there are also flies for lochs to tie.

Off course it wasn't all work and no play there has been the odd flight of fancy coming off the vice lately , these are with pollock in mind, i hope they like them.

16 February 2013

Today we headed to a bass mark, for 12pm low tide. On arrival we decided to have a shot in the rock pools with the LRF gear , and we had fun catching blennies although we are really hoping for other species such as sea scorpions to put in a appearance, though Brian thinks he may have moved one. plenty of small stuff in the pools but don't know if these are just other blennies or gobies of some sort?
here's a few captures, pink and red isome was the bait of choice.

Between LRF ing we had a good shot for the bass the conditions looked ideal but unfortunately apart from a take we never got any action, it was though a nice day to be out casting in the salt.

9 February 2013

Fishing in winter has been hard lately , what with snow, rain, high winds , coloured water and to be quite honest , I'm really longing for March the 15th to arrive so i can once again, cast a fly to the brownies again. Well yesterday the signs of spring was in the air in the guise of birdsong, i even had a pair of spotted woodpeckers fly over my head , just gives you a mental pickup that spring is on it's way. Tomorrows forecast ....... snow!

Snowdrops

Today found us once again in pursuit of the "Lady of the stream ". We were fishing by midday but what followed was a few cold fish less hours , So eventually we decided to head upstream . The first pool we fished seemed barren. The next a giant of a pool which is fairly featureless, getting in waist deep water there was only one thing for it but to search the pool methodically with our bugs taking a pace upstream each cast and eventually i got a take and landed a bright grayling of 1lb 8oz. She had taken a tungsten beaded olive bug .

Brian started below me and a rise caught his eye , so he moved to the area and first cast took a fish. a bonny wee grayling just the ticket to lift your spirits and put a smile on your face, it's also nice to see smaller fish in the system it's not often you come across them .

A wee jewel

we thought we might end up getting a succession of these fish being shoal fish but despite seeing another riser and throwing the kitchen sink at them we could not tempt one .

We then walked downstream to fish a pool we've never fished before , but anglers had beaten us too it, turned out to be a few gents we met before, we talked about fishing mostly about pike , and by the time we had finished it was time for home , not the most succesful of trips, quite hard work but i really quite enjoyed it.